


sharp edges

by larkscape



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Knifeplay, M/M, Self-Destructive Behavior
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-12
Updated: 2019-02-12
Packaged: 2019-10-27 03:44:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17759159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/larkscape/pseuds/larkscape
Summary: The cash on the dresser builds a wall between them. This is a transaction, nothing more, nothing less.In the days after the loss of the Kerberos mission, Keith copes. Poorly.





	sharp edges

**Author's Note:**

> writer's block sucks but i think i might have kicked it, so have some sad keith

 

The cash on the dresser builds a wall between them. This is a transaction, nothing more, nothing less. That's the only thing that makes Keith feel— not safe, never safe; he doesn't  _ want _ safe, not in this wasteland of a post-Shiro world—  _ comfortable _ enough to turn his grip on the knife.

His last links to a past he doesn’t want to remember, most of the time: a knife and a stolen hoverbike. They’re symbols of loss more than anything. Some legacy. And now he’s here, in a dirty hotel across the street from a dive bar in some tiny desert outpost he never bothered to learn the name of, picking up strangers. Spending his grocery budget on a few hours with a warm body in a cold bed.

Keith could have gotten this for free, but that’s not what he wants. Having the price laid out, tangible and discrete, that part’s important. No implicit debts, paid or unpaid. No strings. Just a transaction.

It’s a bad idea and he knows it. Any place whose sign has more dead neon than lit is a bad idea, and so is anyone inside. It’s going to take days for the cigarette stink to fade from his jacket. Longer before the split lip mends. Longer beyond that for whatever happens next to fade from his skin.

Shiro’s not here to give him a hard time about it, though. No one is here. Keith’s mistakes are his alone, once again. He ought to be used to that.

He isn’t.

He offers the knife, handle first, to the stranger on the bed. Another mistake, but at least this one is a loss he chooses.

"Mark me up. Make it hurt."

_ Make me forget. _

 

 


End file.
